Iranian troops prepared Wednesday for fresh war games on the country's tense border with Afghanistan after Tehran ordered nine more army divisions to the area to take part in the exercises. Iran, which already has about 70,000 troops massed on the border, said the new military maneuvers could begin as early as Saturday.

Iraq on Sunday criticized a U.N. Security Council decision to review all aspects of its relations with Baghdad, as U.S. and British warplanes hit targets in Iraq in an escalation of aerial attacks over the weekend. Iraq said the U.N. review decision made Saturday would mean months of delay while sanctions imposed after Baghdad's 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait remained in place. The Iraqi News Agency quoted a government official as saying the Security Council should condemn the U.S.

The great freeze in U.S. relations with Iran that began with the Islamic revolution nearly 20 years ago appears to be softening a little around the edges, but as President Mohammad Khatami made clear at the United Nations this week, Tehran still isn't ready to open a formal political dialogue with Washington. But that doesn't mean Khatami isn't eager to improve Iran's relations elsewhere.

With Iran continuing to work on its nuclear program, U.S. national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that the world is "worried and suspicious" about Tehran's intentions and is determined not to let it produce an atomic weapon. Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to Washington's insistence that Iran's effort puts the world in peril.

Iran said Friday that it would try a dozen suspected Al Qaeda members, but Iranian officials declined to identify the suspects and the U.S. demanded that they be turned over to their home countries. U.S. officials have said Al Qaeda figures in Iran include Saif Adel, an Egyptian who is the group's top military commander.

Iran has added a "strategic missile" to its arsenal after a successful test, and the country is ready to confront any external threat, the nation's defense minister told state-run radio Saturday. The radio report did not say whether the test involved the previously announced new version of the Shahab-3 rocket -- capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East -- or a different missile.

"We are ready to explore further ways to build mutual confidence and avoid misunderstandings." That offer to Iran from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is the strongest signal yet that Washington seeks an end to nearly two decades of hostility with the Islamic revolutionary regime in Tehran. The goal, Albright said in a speech to the Asia Society, is not just to ease tensions but to develop "a road map leading to normal relations."

Iran said Wednesday that it would resume uranium enrichment and warned that it might quit cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which it accused of kowtowing to Washington at a meeting in Vienna. Separately, Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told reporters that the Iranian military had built nuclear centrifuges for civilian use -- the first time Iran has acknowledged that its military was involved in the country's nuclear program.

U.S. troops backed by attack helicopters clashed with militants Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul, the military and Iraqi officials said. Lt. Gen. Ahmad Mohammed Khalaf, commander of Mosul's police forces, said at a news conference that U.S. aircraft had destroyed two homes where the militants were holed up, killing 20. However, U.S. military spokesman Sgt. John H. Franzen said soldiers had reported minimal damage to two buildings and found no one injured or dead.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator declared Saturday that Iran would resume its uranium-enrichment program if ongoing negotiations with the Europeans failed, and he warned the United States against "playing with fire." Speaking at a two-day international conference on nuclear technology, Hassan Rowhani said the Middle East would become more unstable if Americans asked the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran.